Thursday, May 27, 2010

I just wanted to share a quick/simple course I created for Digital Storytelling, based on the inspiration from Shelly Terrell, Naomi Harm, and the Merton School District. This is designed specifically for all sorts of grade levels and can be used as a nice way to introduce this concept.

Please, feel free to use anyway you can and if you'd like to contact me about something more in-depth or detailed let me know.

Tessellation Creator is a wonderful new site that I found out about from Karen Ogen's excellent blog. I've always been a fan of tessellations ever since I taught how to make them using Appleworks 5.0 back in the day. However, I always wanted to be able to do this online and w/ Tessellation Creator now I can.

Topmarks is a educational search engine and one of the better ones around, that I found out about from the amazing blog by Jonathan Wylie's, Education Technology Blog!! Not only can you search for excellent resources, but there are great links for whiteboard sites and educational games as well.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Fuzzwich is a crazy fun site for digital storytelling that I just stumbled across thanks to two special educators, Ozge Karaoglu and Shelly Terrell. This is a site where a person selects their backgrounds, characters (where you can add your own face), and actions and then develops a story. I like to think of it as a simplified version of Alice Storytelling.

Sepia Town is a search engine that looks for old pictures while implementing Google Maps. Not only can you search for images but you can upload them too. It kind of reminded me of a more polished version of HistoGrafica.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

5 Card Flickr Draw is an interesting site that can be used for digital storytelling. The way this works is Flickr gives a person 5 pictures to choose from. Once the picture is chosen another 5 are shown until there are 5 pictures lined up. After that a person can share this story or start over.

I think this is a nice site for brainstorming and can really get those creative juices flowing to create a story that matches the pictures.

Usually I don't do reviews of gaming sites unless they are very good and Sheppard Software did is just that. This is a great site to use for educational games on any number of subjects. Also, it is nice for a wide variety of ages especially the youngsters at PreK-K.

TopicBox is a search engine for educators that boasts some interesting numbers such as: over 2000 websites, 11 subjects, and 212 topics. It claims to have saved teachers an estimated 1,110,974 hours of searching (as the avg search takes 15 min).

Monday, May 24, 2010

Brainstorming/mind mapping has been an educational technique that has been around since the beginning of cognitive thought. This is a tool that facilitates ideas and collaborative in nature. W/ the use of web 2.0 technology this concept has evolved into an ideal 21st Century Technology for education. "A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing. (wikipedia)"

Top 10 Sites for Brainstorming/Mind Mapping

Slick Plan - What's not to like? Easy to use, create beautiful flow charts, then embed to a site.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Education Eye is an interesting new (beta) site that I had the pleasure of exploring due to a tip from one of my readers (Rei). This is a very unique site that is a cross between a brainstorming app and search engine.

The interface is in a interactive "cloud" that is surrounded by a wheel. In the cloud are the search results that can be clicked on to read an article. The wheel can be clicked on to adjust the number of search results. Also, a person can use EE as a search engine by typing in a term and finding results on that. I recommend typing in your name to see what happens.

Finally, there is a color coded key which shows what type of result is what. I would love to find out if these articles can have multimedia content displayed such as audio/video.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Slide shows are one of the most popular ways to integrate technology into education. No longer is it necessary for a person to have a program such as iPhoto or Power Point to create such a thing. Now there are a number of free online sites that lets users create amazing looking slide shows.

Edistorm is a new site for brainstorming similar to the way Wall Wisher or Pin Dax works. This is done in real-time by the use of stickies. As w/ any "web 2.0" site this incorporates collaboration as a number of users can brainstorm at the same time. Also, the stickies are color coordinated for organization.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Tunisian ELT Forum is one of the nicest looking online magazines that I had a pleasure to do an interview for. I'd like to thank Tarak Brahmi for the opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful platform, as well as his friendship.

Best of the Web V. III is now up online. This presentation can be used by anyone as they see fit. I hope people will find some good resources here. This volume focuses on excellent resources for presentations/slide shows.

Read the Words is a very interesting site that I just learned about from Free Technology 4 Teachers. This is a site where users upload their text and then have it converted into speech by one of fifteen different voices. A person can all save their reading, share it, or embed it into their site.

The Pic Lab is another new site for editing photos online. While this site might not have all the bells and whistles as some other editors (effects); what's here is very easy to use and a person can: crop, add layers/filters, etc etc.

Monday, May 17, 2010

I'd like to thank the following special educators who included me in their list of blogs worth taking a look: Shelly Terrell, Ozge Karaoglu, and Ana Maria Menezes. In following along w/ the rules of this process, I'd like to nominate the following blogs that I feel are worth taking a look at (excluding the ones who nominated me per rules)...

Larry Ferlazzo - Quite simply one of the best resource sharing blogs around!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

HootCourse is a very ambitious project and that is to bring the most popular social networks into the classroom. This is done by creating a virtual space that is built around real-time tweets and status updates of those popular sites.

After giving it a look, I must say that I am very intrigued. I would love to see this used in a "real" teaching environment. This could be great for the higher grade levels. There are some nice teacher features too, such as the ability to embed.

I'd love to see a paid service that filters content for this site, that would be ideal for education.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Primary Pad is a new site that is powered by Etherpad for collaborative word processing. There is nothing new here for those that are familiar w/ Ether Pad or Text Flow but it does offer some nice packages for education.

This is a free service only for the first three months. A paid subscription will allow anywhere from 8 to 96 sharing a pad collaboratively (depending on the package). Also the paid version will allow educators to create user accounts, manage pads, etc.

Hunch is an interesting new search engine that gets "smarter" the more it is used. The way it works is a person asks a question on Hunch and it gives out some suggestions/results. The more a person asks it the more refined an answer gets as the database "learns".

I wonder what would happen if you type into Hunch, "Is using hunch worth my time?" ;-)

Monday, May 10, 2010

Smories is a fun site that I just learned about from Zarco English. This is a site where kids read stories for kids. My only gripe is that I wish it would've had pictures to go along w/ the story telling. This would be ideal for the younger kids.

Guzzle is a nice new site for creating your online newspaper that reminds me of the Mac app, Times. However, there is no filter w/ this site so I don't recommend using it w/ students. This would be a nice site to use if you want to customize how you search online and do it all in one place.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

"Professional development refers to skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Professional development encompasses all types of facilitated learning opportunities, ranging from college degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning opportunities situated in practice. It has been described as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage [1] There are a variety of approaches to professional development, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance. (wikipedia)"

PD is a huge part of any educator's life. We as teachers are always teaching/leading others and always learning ourselves. W/ that being said I decided to give my top ten tips that I use when doing Professional Development. As any list this is subjective and open for debate, I'd love to hear what tools that others use that they find successful.

Top Ten Tips for Professional Development

Flexibility - Not only a great skill for PD but teaching as well. You always want a backup plan just in case something is not working, ie the internet.

Knowledge - It's very important to have a vast knowledge of the topic you're teaching. You don't have to be a "jedi master" but at least be able to answer the majority of questions.

Confidence - This goes along w/ knowledge, nothing is more uncomfortable for the audience then watching somebody who looks like they don't deserve/want to be there.

Innovation - I find it very important to use a variety of tools and present information in a new way to keep your audience engaged.

Organization - An organized presentation will make the presenter's life that much easier!

Resources - One of the things I pride myself on is giving the audience something tangible that they can take back w/ them or download (ie, digital books, CD, etc.).

Creativity - This goes hand and hand w/ innovation and helps keeps audience engaged and wanting more. The traditional Powerpoint presentation is no longer realistic for a 21st Century audience.

Humility - There is nothing that bothers me more then watching a presentation/educator who thinks they are a "know-it-all". We can always learn more especially from each other. That is exactly what developing a Personal Learning Network is all about. It's vital for a presenter to be open to constructive criticism and be good at self reflection.

Humor - It's always nice to be able to open up in front of a large crowd and there is nothing better then having a sense of humor. Remember not to change who you are when presenting but be your self and let your natural sense of humor shine through!!

Availability - It is always nice to be available to your audience for networking/answering questions at any time. Make yourself available and approachable to help strengthen your skill set.

There are many masters of professional development but a few that come to mind right off the bat are: Naomi Harm, Kevin Honeycutt, and Shelly Terrell. I recommend familiarizing yourself w/ these excellent educators to learn from some of the industry's best!!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

It's no surprise that a lot of educators who blog also share a love for professional development. The last presentation/course that I developed "50 Sites in 60 Min" did quite well online that I figure why not turn my digital books into slide shows. (BTW if anybody wants to email me about PD and has questions on how I do 50 Sites or any other topic please let me know.)

I'm in the process of creating 6 slide shows that can be used/edited in anyway that a user sees fit. Ideally, this is not designed for PD but can certainly be used in this manner or any other way. Each volume will focus on a different topic.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

ReviewBasics is an excellent site for collaborating on a number of items such as video, photos, text, presentations etc. This is done w/ a very nice user interface and lets others provide feedback on all sorts of content.

I highly recommend checking out their brief 1 min demo by clicking here.

Digital Storytelling is the practice of telling stories w/ computer tools. Wikipedia explains teachers use digital storytelling for several reasons such as,"1) to incorporate multimedia into their curriculum and 2) Teachers can also introduce storytelling in combination with social networking in order to increase global participation, collaboration, and communication skills. Moreover, digital storytelling is a way to incorporate and teach the twenty-first century student the twenty-first century technology skills such as information literacy, visual literacy, global awareness, communication and technology literacy."

Top 10 sites for Digital Storytelling

Digital Films - Quite simply one of the best digital storytelling sites around. This site is very user friendly w/ an iMovie HD feel and great for beginners!!

Myths & Legends - Excellent site for storytelling, can add characters, backgrounds, objects, etc. and great for education w/ an educational instance/portal.

Xtranormal - Very popular/fun site for digital storytelling. A very easy to use site where text is all that is needed to create an original story.

My StoryMaker - Great site for young readers to create a cartoon looking story.

Storybird - An excellent site for creating pictures books for storytelling.

Primary Access - Is a wonderful site for creating digital stories using historical stock footage.

Google Search Stories - A very easy site to use by selecting stock video/audio to create a digital story.

Zimmer Twins - A fun site where users select cartoon footage to create their very own digital story.

Zooburst - Is a brand new site for creating 3D/pop-up stories. A user can either upload their own image or use stock photos. Hopefully, audio/video integration will be coming soon!

Stage'D - A very impressive visual site where users choose their characters, backgrounds, and items to create their very own computer generated story.

Zooburst has to be one of my favorite new (alpha) sites around for digital storytelling!! This is such a great site for creating 3D pop-up books!

What makes ZB such an excellent resource is how easy it is to use as well as the number of features it has. A user has the ability to edit their background, the degree to which items pop up from the book, as well as embed their book into their site.

There are still a lot more features to come such as audio/video integration being this is only an alpha release but I highly recommend checking out this fabulous site by clicking here!!

Runt.ly is a new (beta) site that I learned about from Larry Ferlazzo's amazing blog. This is a site that is designed to make it easy for anyone to post on microblog feeds such as Twitter or Plurk. A nice feature is that the user does not have to register, just type your post or upload a photo and a unique URL is generated for sharing.

Footnote is an excellent site for finding and sharing historical documents. What makes FN such a great site is the ability to search by either keyword or via timeline which is essential for any historical site.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Mashpedia is a wonderful new site that I just found out about from Free Technology 4 Teachers. Mashepeida is a search engine that searches many different engines such as Digg, Twitter, Flickr, news, blogs, feeds, etc. It is a real-time encyclopedia.

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David Kapuler

I have been working w/ technology and education for over 14 years in a school setting. I'm looking for work in a K-12 environment as a Technology Integration/Support Specialist in WI/IL. Contact email - dkapuler@gmail.com
I'm currently looking to get my Mac OS/Repair Certification, as well as a Masters in Technology Integration.
Also, I have a solid background in web design, w/ network/server support.
On a personal note, I';m a proud father of 3 boys and 1 girl, and have been married for 10 years.